July 2024
Gday Mate,
I don’t know the exact details of what led you to end up in this place where you have had thoughts of physically hurting this woman you care about, or where you have actually hurt her, but I am pretty confident that you never thought you’d be “that man” & think and do these things. I would also be pretty confident that you know it isn’t the right thing to do and that you wish it never happened.
I am writing this letter, because I see your pain & isolation and hear you and reckon you could do with someone who actually gets something of what’s going on for you, maybe even more than you do right now, and has something to offer that might actually help.
When I see Domestic Violence reported in the media, past all of the understandably angry voices demanding women be kept safe, I also hear the men who commit these acts being labelled as evil monsters and vile offenders, who somehow think they are justified in their behaviour & I just don’t think that is the case ; Sure there are some unfeeling psychopaths committing domestic violence, but I think the vast majority of men who use violence are regular men whose ability to control there emotions isn’t sufficient to handle the heightened emotional states that they find in the heated moments of intimate relationships when things are breaking down. And when an adult male body controlled by the emotional equivalent of a dis-regulated toddler tries to stop an emotionally up-regulated partner from upsetting them there is little wonder we have horrific domestic violence statistics.
Now don’t hear me for a second excusing any violent action you might have done or considered doing. We both know that isn’t right & in fact criminal. Nothing your partner does or says makes it right to physically hurt her, even if she comes at you in rage herself, you are both better served by you using your strength to get out of the situation & not further escalate it. You are responsible for your emotions and any behaviour that flows from them. But that doesn’t make you an un-redeemable evil monster, it shows you up as someone ill equipped & ill-prepared by our culture for the emotional pressures of an intimate relationship & that that has had catastrophic results.
My point is that your identity isn’t evil or abhorrent even if some of your actions have been. But you do have things you need to take responsibility for your thoughts, emotions and behaviour.
You don’t “got this”, you won’t “do better” next time; you need help, or else next time might be worse.
I picture how poorly equipped most of the men in our culture are for handling the emotional load and realities of intimate relationships as being something like someone trying to tow a massive trailer with a little 4 cylinder hatchback, they might get it going along the road, and even drive quite a way on flat, straight, “plain sailing” roads, but when things go downhill & the road gets rough, windy or slippery it is going to be hard to stop or course correct without running off the road and someone getting hurt.
Now even if they know nothing about towing most people would think that’s a stupid situation to get yourself into & that there would be rules to prevent this from occurring on our roads, and yet it also occurs to me that this is exactly the recipe our culture has for emotionally preparing our boys & men for the emotional stresses of life.
We have a culture that raises boys to be detached from their emotions and still give them a large number of unhelpful, ill-fitting pictures of what a man is and expect them to work it out for them self. Led and shown by often absent & largely emotional incompetent male role models abusing power and reacting to pain in uncontrolled ways and well-intentioned but equally confused women often carrying much hurt and confusion around the topic of what a boy or man should be all floating on a sea of sound bite public commentary. So many of these messages are contradictory: Be strong, be tough, be soft, be emotionally vulnerable. Want to win, but not too much.
Our society has so much relational disconnection and distraction, constant busyness for everyone, so many mixed messages on who and how to be. When did any of us learn to cope with the emotional load and stress of day-to-day life let alone the intense emotional world of trusting our heart to another and being ok if they don’t want us anymore??
When you see a man on the news who has catastrophically crashed and burned when the road of life took a sharp downhill bend and all of the media and a whole heap of people who say they care about domestic violence paint him as a monster. Politicians come out and make promises of tougher penalties and more money spent, looking hopeless and helpless because they don’t actually know how to stop this.
How does that make you feel? Does it make you want to seek help for your challenges to control your emotions when you hear and see public out pourings of hate? Do you feel guilt for what you have done or considered doing? Do you feel shame, as though there is something inherently wrong with you that you have this history? Or do you follow your training and disconnect from negative emotions and not feel anything much at all – distract yourself away? Tell yourself at least you’re not like him? Maybe vow to try harder next time you’re arguing?
I bet he never thought he would find himself where he did either.
I am not writing this to minimise in anyway anything you might have done & at the same time I don’t want to stir up shame in you that there is anything inherently wrong with you. In fact I just deeply want to remove the shame obstacle and have you to be able to access the help you need to change your story and the story of those you love.
And in doing so I’d love to change the way we understand & handle domestic violence in our society so we can actually stop it. So we can actually stop the violence.
I know you don’t want it. Your partner doesn’t want it. We as a society don’t want it either.
And none of us want to waste nearly a billion dollars on mopping up after it and not spend enough on helping you and men like you take responsibility for your life and build your emotional load carrying capacity so you can handle the sort of pain that is a part of intimate relationships & all of life. So you can be a life-giving force in your community, not a life taking force.
So take responsibility for what you have done, seek help.
Find a therapist[1] who will help you take responsibility by learning to be emotionally literate- so you can read your emotions and respond appropriately.
Initially it will be simply to learn your warning signs of escalating anger, so you can catch that & manage it before your system is flooded with stress hormones which impair your reasoning ability.
There is work to do here to learning how to keep yourself and others safe, but again a good therapist will be able to take you beyond this Emergency Brake Installation into a full Emotional Literacy Brake, steering & suspension upgrade. If you are willing to take that journey.
And this is where the good work is found. Here these skills of emotional understanding & connection will help you relate better with yourself and others and also help you process the hurts you have experienced in your life & discover your unique personal gifts to offer the world. Helping bring meaning, purpose & vitality to every aspect of your life. I do this work with my therapy clients & also in groups with an organisation that exists to help men to do this work & learn how to handle their power and pain[2]. For many men this can be a literal moving from a world of dull grey scale monotony to a life of full vibrant full colour.
I don’t know the details of what brought you to this place in your life, but I do know it wasn’t so you would be stuck in shame and mess. There is a path out of this into a fuller life. There may be consequences to face for how you have behaved in the past, both relational & possibly legal, but the sooner you take responsibility for your emotions & your behaviour the less these consequences will be.
Failure isn’t final. In my line of work it is often the starting line. When we fail at something we find out where we need to work, and that work is so often the key to finding out who we truly are and what is ours to do in life.
You owe it to yourself, your family & community. Take the step. Reach out for help.
Sincerely,
Steve Freeman
Psychotherapist/Group Facilitator
[1] Individual & Group Therapy are both well served to help you with addressing these issues in your life. My Therapy practice can be accessed at www.stevefreeman.com.au & there are many other great service providers out there. I always encourage finding people who not just want to treat the problem but carry on to living a full and fulfilling life. Just “not violent” or “not depressed” etc are a pretty low bar – lets expect more from life & therapy.
[2] Centre for Men & Families Australia is a registered harm prevention charity that runs a network of men’s groups all around Australia & they also run 2 Different Men’s Rites of Passage Programs (MROP – A midlife rites of passage for men 30+ & Forged – a younger man’s rite of passage for Men 18-30).
Rites of Passage or formal “initiation” is a process as old as time where boys are taken away from the community for a time to learn the skills needed to be a Man in society, traditionally the key themes of this work is to learn how to handle Power and Pain, do grief work and discover a deeper sense of identity. Resulting in grounded men without anything to prove, who can use their strength in an intentional life-giving way rather than being reactive. Interestingly you could say all men are initiated (taught how to handle power & pain) by their culture or self -initiated, but sadly these are often dysfunctional scripts that don’t work: Act tough, fake it till you make it, numb the pain, stuff it down, try to be cool or whatever.